Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!herald.usask.ca!regina!hercules!cazabon
From: cazabon@hercules (Charles Cazabon (186-003-526))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations
Subject: Re: Question about Cross-Dos
Message-ID: <606@regina.uregina.ca>
Date: 13 Jun 91 07:13:56 GMT
References: <1991Jun11.215637.563@wpi.WPI.EDU> <1991Jun12.001931.3711@ucselx.sdsu.edu> <507@regina.uregina.ca> <1991Jun12.123802.14255@zds-oem.zds.com>
Sender: news@regina.uregina.ca
Reply-To: cazabon@hercules.uregina.ca (Charles Cazabon (186-003-526))
Organization: University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan
Lines: 60

In article <1991Jun12.123802.14255@zds-oem.zds.com> easton@zds-oem.zds.com (Jeff Easton) writes:
:In article <507@regina.uregina.ca> cazabon@hercules.uregina.ca (Charles Cazabon (186-003-526)) writes:
:
:>Applied Engineering boobed when they desgined their high density drive.
:>The way an IBM gets 1.44 megs onto a 3.5 inch disk is to slow it down to
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:>half the speed of a 720 K disk (rotational speed, not transfer speed).
:                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:>That way, they get 18 sectors per track instead of 9, and voila, twice the
:>storage.
:
:  Er,  The IBM style 1.44 Mb disks have the same rotational speed as 
:720K drives.  The data transfer rate was doubled to obtain HD.  The same
:is true of the new 2.88 Mb drives as well.  The transfer rate was doubled 
:again.

Thanks for the correction--I think I must have been thinking of the way
that a friend of mine hooked one up to his Amy...he cut it's speed in half.

:  The downside to all this is that the Commodore version of a 1.44 Mb 
:drive will read/write the HD disk twice as slow as a true IBM can.  This
:assumes that everything but the transfer rate is the same, which I'm
:sure isnt the case :-).
:
:>Commodore's high density drive (standard equipment on the 3000UX) manages
:>to get the reliable reads at that speed, and so can read 1.44 IBM disks,
:>and also, as a bonus, you get the AmigaDos 1.76 megs/disk format.
:
:  Is this shipping now in the UX?  If so, where can I get one for my
:regular old A3000?  Is there any Amiga DOS drivers needed to support it?

Yes, this drive ships as standard equipment now in 3000UXes.  I don't know
if it did in the first few, but at the Amiga Expo in Calgary, Canada
on May 5, I was told that the 3000UX was currently shipping with the new
high density drive.  However, he was not allowed to tell us whether Commodore
had designed a new Gary chip capable of hadling 500 kbits/second, and so
I cannot answer that.

The new drive is not available for older Amigas in Canada yet (officially)
but I can't speak for the US.  We frequently get new products faster than
the US, sort of like a test market.  It has its advantages; but also its
disadvantages (i.e....the SideCar).

Also, the new C= high-resolution three-button mouse ships with the 3000UX
now.  Nice mouse, feels good, looks funky.


:        Jeff Easton               Zenith Data Systems
:     // Systems Engineer 
:   \X/  easton%zds-oem@caspian.cs.andrews.edu
:	easton@andrews.edu	
:   What?  Preemptive Multitasking in only 256K of RAM?  :^)  :^)
:
:  Disclaimer:  I dont work in Drive Evaluation. :-)

Neither do I...oh yes, sorry, I do.  I guess I don't have an excuse!


--Chuck Cazabon, cazabon@hercules.cc.uregina.ca
* My Opinions Are Not My Own...Feel Free To Plagiarize